Around Europe: From Germany’s second-best side to brink of demotion, Wolfsburg face final day showdown

In this week's column, Ian Hawkey focuses on the slide of Wolfsburg, who face a final day showdown with fellow relegation threatened side Hamburg.

Mario Gomez, right, has been responsible for half of Wolfsburg's goals this season. Christof Stache / AFP

Andries Jonker had a clear choice four months back.

On the one hand, the comforts and quiet stimulations of his job at Arsenal, where he was head of an admired youth system with a workspace of manicured pitches and state-of-the-art facilities at a club where managerial stability was a watchword.

Or there was the offer that came abruptly from Germany.

Would Jonker, a 54-year-old with wide experience outside his native Netherlands as an assistant manager and manager to feeder teams — but less as a No 1 on the bench — care to join the maelstrom that Wolfsburg had become?

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He accepted and said “yes” to becoming the club’s third manager, following Valerien Ismael and Dieter Hecking, this season.

His task was to arrest a decline and avert a crisis. Wolfsburg knew and trusted Jonker, and he was familiar with the place and its institutional idiosyncrasies.

The Wolves are motored by the great engine that is Volkswagen, the car manufacturer that provides a large proportion of the city of Wolfsburg’s employment.

VW are Wolfsburg’s principal backers, and the corporation and the club have in headier times whizzed along the fast lane of the Bundesliga together.

Jonker was there when Wolfsburg last moved up the gears, working in various roles and rising to assistant coach, the job he left to join Arsenal in 2014.

He had helped to develop a Wolfsburg squad that would become the best of the chasing pack in a Bundesliga where the leaders, and serial champions, Bayern Munich have been uncatchable for rather longer than the rest care to remember.

In 2015, Wolfsburg finished runners-up, won the German Cup and defeated Bayern in the Super Cup to kick off last season.

Only 17 months ago, they were playing Uefa Champions League football.

So, Jonker was entitled to ask, how had they slumped to 14th place in the table when Ismael left in February, two months after the respected sporting director Klaus Allofs quit and four after Hecking had departed as manager?

The explanations are many and extend far beyond the field of play.

Volkswagen has had problems and adjusted its budgets after the emissions scandal of two years ago led to heavy fines and projected sales losses.

It was found to have installed devices in certain car models designed to mislead pollution inspectors.

Following the fall-out, the corporation’s investments in outside activities, including sports sponsorship, were cut back.

Wolfsburg’s outlay on transfer fees fell and the sales, since last summer of the likes Andre Schurrle and Julian Draxler, and the strikers Max Kruse and Bas Dost, have left them anaemic in attack.

Only relegated Darmstadt, and Hamburg — who Wolfsburg host today — have scored fewer Bundesliga goals this season than the Wolves. The 16 scored by veteran Mario Gomez, brought in last summer, account for almost half the total.

Jonker has not had a magic wand to wave. Wolfsburg’s position in the table has not improved under him, and four defeats in the past seven games — including a 6-0 thrashing at home to Bayern — have made today’s last fixture of the regular season almost a play-off against Hamburg, who are 16th, one spot and two points below Jonker’s team, to avoid a relegation play-off.

The club finishing 16th in the table have to meet, over two legs, the third-placed finishers in the second division to decide who goes up, or stays in, the top flight the following season.

“There is pressure, but the pressure is greater on Hamburg,” Jonker said.

Though there is a possibility that Augsburg or even — with some exceptional last-day scorelines — Mainz could slip to 16th if Hamburg win, Wolfsburg are most in danger if they cannot achieve the point they need for safety.

“The water is up to our necks,” Gomez said.

Hamburg are experienced escapologists. Twice in the past three years they have maintained their place in the top flight by winning a relegation play-off.

They are one of the so-called “dinosaurs” of the Bundesliga’s first division, a club who have never been outside the elite.

For Hamburg, who won the European Cup in the 1980s, steady decline has become a weary reality of modern times.

For Wolfsburg, and a manager new to the challenge of potential relegation, the plunge is disconcerting. Jonker has 90 minutes to draw on the parachute.

“We have enough quality to do what we have to do,” he said. “I am convinced we will.”

Player of the week: Claudio Marchisio, Juventus

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Daniel Kopatsch / Getty Images

A decade ago this weekend, Juventus celebrated the first of their six domestic championship titles in the last 10 years. It was the Serie B, second division, title. A young Juventino, Claudio Marchisio, set up a goal for Alessandro Del Piero. A renaissance from serious setback was under way.

Happy half-dozen

Marchisio, now 31, hopes to celebrate that anniversary in poignant style on Sunday, as part of the Juventus who clinch a sixth successive Serie A title. Victory at home against Crotone would confirm it.

Stalwart survivor

Marchisio, goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and defender Giorgio Chiellini are the current players who can recall in person how the journey from outside the top flight to unprecedented dominance began, the club having been punitively relegated to Serie B in 2006 after Juve executives had been found to have manipulated match officials.

Cadet to captain

Marchisio is a Juventus fan. He had a season-ticket as a child, and worked as a ball-boy on the touchline at the Stadio Delle Alpi, the club’s former home. After impressing in the youth teams of the club, his breakthrough to the first-team was accelerated by the departure of several players when the club dropped to Serie B. He became a symbol of the comeback.

Tenacity and technique

His hard work, the energy to cover a great deal of ground has made Marchisio popular with supporters. But he has a range of fine technical attributes, too, and in recent years, notably since Andrea Pirlo left Juventus in 2015, his delivery of a dead-ball has been utilised to good effect.

Tough campaign

This has a been a stop-start season for Marchisio. He missed Euro 2016 because of a cruciate ligament injury sustained shortly before the tournament and his recovery period dragged into the new campaign. He has since been in and out of a starting XI where Sami Khedira and Miralem Pjanic command the central midfield roles.

Cup joy

Marchisio did play all 90 minutes of the Coppa Italia final last Wednesday, a 2-0 victory over Lazio and the first trophy in what Juventus hope will be a trio of major prizes. It also marked a return to form for Juve, who had lost one and drawn two of their previous three league games. “We left ourselves with no more margin for error,” he said.

Ultimate ambition

With league titles in two divisions, over 50 caps for Italy, Marchisio has one ambition above all. As a 10-year-old he watched Juventus win the last of their two Uefa Champions League titles, and played in the losing final two years ago. As Khedira struggles with injury, Marchisio eyes a place in what he hopes will be a winning line-up come June 3rd when Juve meet Real Madrid in Cardiff for the European Cup.

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